Deliberate study vs. intuitive experience

Continuing reading Cal Newport’s “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, I realized that most points that resonate with me are the ones that I have come across before, sometimes several times, but that have fallen off my radar (not forgotten exactly, but I stopped being actively aware of them). This reinforces the idea to keep notes of the main points from the books I read.

One of these good/interesting points in the Newport’s book is the notion that not only the quantity of practice matters (e.g. the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers”), but also it’s quality. Of course this is a bit of a truism, and more than that, it has been specifically brought up by Hayashi-sensei (kendo 8th dan hanshi) at a seminar a few years ago. As most kendo-related teachings, it applies not only to kendo to nearly everything else in life. Newport is being a bit more specific by introducing a classification of practice into serious study (“deliberate practice” in Anders Ericsson’s terms) and intuitive practice.

Since time is a non-renewable resource, everyone who wants to develop a skill faces a dilemma – to do a serious study “for the sole purpose of improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance” or to practice intuitively by applying whatever skills one has at his/her current level of development. Newport’s example is related to chess: studying the books with a teacher vs. playing in tournaments. This is a true dilemma (i.e. there is no single right answer), but the studies across various fields apparently show that serious study is necessary (although maybe not sufficient) for becoming a “grand master”.

The problem with intuitive experience is that in real-life, applied situations such as chess or kendo tournaments, routine photo shoots, academic research, etc., the challenge is either decidedly above or decidedly below your current ability. In both situations “skill improvement is likely to be minimized”. In deliberate study, on the other hand, there is an opportunity to choose a challenge that is appropriate for the skill level (incidentally, this is typically a teacher’s job).